


And Who Are You To Desire Freedom?

by YaGirlSkyByte



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, F/F, First Meetings, TW - brief reference to suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:47:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23449531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YaGirlSkyByte/pseuds/YaGirlSkyByte
Summary: The princess seeks more from her life. The thief is not here for her.
Relationships: Aoba Moca/Shirasagi Chisato
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	And Who Are You To Desire Freedom?

Chisato Shirasagi couldn’t sleep.

Even in the dim light of her chambers, she could see well enough to make out the clock by her bedside, which made the time out to be twelve minutes past midnight. She glanced at the thin sliver of light peeking out from under her door, and noted the faint, ever-present distortion in its shape. Her guards had not moved from the post, then.

She slipped out of bed and made her way over to the window, unlatching it as slowly and silently as she could manage. It was a long way down from her tower. A guard was making his rounds in the courtyard below; from his position, Chisato guessed he would move on in about three minutes, giving her a window of around two minutes to climb out of her window, down a few floors, and into the next window down before the next one came through. It was a regular ritual for her. not nightly, perhaps not even weekly, but regular enough that she had learned the castle’s nighttime rhythms by heart. Excepting special occasions, she would typically be confined to her chambers between the hours of ten p.m. and seven a.m., at which point she would be allowed to leave (having already been dressed and fed) in order to perform her scheduled daily duties, including her three daily meals: the aforementioned breakfast in her chambers, then lunch and dinner in the banquet hall, all specially curated by her personal chef at the behest of her parents, a diet designed to keep her healthy and presentable.

Hence, midnight snacking.

The guard was gone now. She climbed up to the windowsill and took her first step outside, finding the first foothold with practiced ease. No matter how many times she made this climb, she was always exquisitely aware that one wrong move would send her plummeting to the ground. She wondered sometimes if the fall would be enough to kill her.

She made it to the next window at the practiced time, and found it as reliably unreliable as ever. Once it was closed again, masking the traces of her descent. She was on a spiral stairwell now - entirely unlit, since nobody used these stairs at night. She knew that there would be guards posted at the bottom, but that wasn’t a problem, since--

_ klik _

Her hand pushed against the little nubbin on the central column’s wall which masked the secret passageway within, built, she assumed, for the transportation of goods around the castle at times of need. Whenever those times might have been, they were long gone by now. Life in the castle was rich and plentiful, and Chisato always told herself, and anyone who questioned her, that she was grateful for what she had. She always left out the other part, though, the part where she felt like an ornament for her parents to parade around before the subjects, a pretty little idol for them to adore in place of their true rulers.

She reached the bottom of the passageway quickly enough. Not too far now, just a quick dash to the end of the hall. She poked her head through the hidden door, checked the guards’ positions, and started timing out how long she’d have to wait.

As she sat in the darkness, counting the seconds under her breath, she thought, about how she’d come to know all this so well, how effortlessly she could pull it off now. How her little act of rebellion had simply become another routine.

Time’s up.

She ducked out of the passageway without even looking - sure enough, no guards to sound the alarm - and ran towards the kitchen, the plush carpet of the hall masking her footsteps. She pulled the key - a trinket she’d swiped from an inattentive maid a long time ago, and which was now comfortable in her own hand - from her nightgown, passed through the door, and made sure to lock it again when she was through.

Safe, for now. Alone. The way back, no doubt, would be just as easy.

She turned to find somebody else staring at her.

With only the moonlight, it was difficult to make out her features, but it was clear from the scruffiness of her clothes and the mange of her silver hair that she was not supposed to be here. Her arms were full of food - mainly bread - and an open sack sat on the main countertop in the middle of the room, a loose chocolate cornet next to it.

Chisato could hear the pounding of her heart in her chest - hell, the intruder probably could, too. It hadn’t beat this fast in a long time. She did not know this person, and she did not know how it was possible for her, at this point in her life, to have come so close to a person she did not already know. It was all she could do to  _ keep _ her heart in her chest.

Eventually, the tension could hold no longer.

“Shit,” the stranger said.

Well. If there was going to be conversation, Chisato at least knew well enough to keep it above that level.

“Who are you?”

Her eyes, shining blue-grey in the darkness, narrowed slightly. “I’ve seen you before. You’re the princess.”

Chisato almost nodded, a curt jolt of her head. “Yes. Now who are you?”

“...I’m Moca Aoba.”

“Is that name supposed to mean something to me?”

She grinned. “Nope.” She began moving, and Chisato flinched, and she stopped. Her grin widened, and she started again, putting the stolen food in the open sack.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” she asked, opening a cupboard and rifling through its contents.

“You can’t just do that.”

She looked up from the jar of preserves she was examining. For a moment, she just held eye contact, completely silent, expressionless.

“Then stop me.”

She put the preserves in the bag. Chisato remained where she was.

“Looks like I can.”

“Why?” The question slipped from her mouth far quicker than she would have liked; it sounded messy, undignified.

“You’re full of questions, aren’t you?” She smirked, not looking away from her next cupboard. “Guess you don’t know everything after all.”

“...Who says I know everything?”

A lazy eyebrow raised as she weighed two jars of pickled plums in her hands. “You haven’t heard? That’s what everyone says.” She returned one jar to the cupboard and put the other in her bag. “Princess Chisato knows  _ everything _ , Princess Chisato’s so  _ kind _ and  _ graceful _ and  _ beautiful _ , oh, Princess Chisato, I  _ love _ you…”

“No they don’t.”

“Yes, they do. I heard them~”

“No, they  _ don’t! _ ” Too loud. Somebody would hear. The thief seemed to think so, too, judging by how suddenly she stopped moving. Chisato could almost see her ears straining.

Silence.

“They don’t… they don’t  _ know _ me. That…  _ thing _ … they all see out there. That isn’t me. It’s a fiction.”

“You’re awfully talkative.” She was doing the bag back up, now. It was about half full.

“I don’t get the chance to talk much. I admit, it’s rather… freeing.”

“ _ Hm _ .” She grunted, hefting the sack over her shoulder and grabbing the cornet in her free hand. “Tell you what, then. How about we make this a regular thing?”

Chisato scoffed. “Let a  _ criminal _ into my home? I can’t…”

“ _ Please _ . You were just as scared as I was when you thought you’d alerted the guards. You can’t tell anyone I’m here, because then they’d want to know how you knew I was here.” She climbed onto the counter on the other side of the room, making for the window.

“I’m certain the consequences for you would be much more dire.”

“Well, then, maybe there’s some other reason you haven’t called them?”

“Maybe there is. But I suppose you’ll never know.”

She turned back, an eyebrow raised. “Oh? Not interested in my offer? Moca’s poor little heart is going to break~”

“I’m not really into schedules.”

She nodded. “Fair enough. Me neither.” She pushed the window open and looked straight into Chisato’s eyes. “But we both know we’ll end up back here anyway.” She threw something and, instinctively, Chisato caught it. “See you round, Your Highness.”

And with that, she was gone.

Chisato looked down at the chocolate cornet in her hands, and up at the open window. She had lost track of time. Getting back would be rather more difficult now. More interesting. As she placed a hand on the window, ready to pull it shut, she hesitated.

“Until next time, Moca Aoba.”

And the window closed once more.


End file.
